Joe Oliver’s Balanced Budget Target Draws Nearer

Finance Minister Joe Oliver has been saying with confidence in recent weeks that Canada’s federal government is headed toward a balanced budget in 2015. The data are on his side.

His department Friday released public-finance data for the first two months of the current fiscal year, which started April 1. The budget deficit for April and May shrank by more than half from a year earlier, to 1.15 billion Canadian dollars ($1.07 billion). The deficit was C$2.71 billion in the comparable year-ago period.